an X is the best
by woodbox
Summary: God, you’re in so deep. Axel/Roxas, sort of Axel/Sora


**an X is about the best**

Axel grabbed a pen off of his desk. Put it back; leaned to the left. He looked out the window, rubbed his arm, scratched his nose, and then eyed his laptop. Behind him, his bed was just as big and empty as it had been yesterday, last week, last month, last year–ever since he moved into the apartment, which was going on four years. On the wall beside his desk, there was a page-a-day calendar, the plain kind with the big black numbers, dated a few weeks back.

The desk itself was small, much like the town outside the room in which the desk sat. Everything was sort of cramped, in that very clean and spartan way. He lived on top of both the grocery store and the pharmacy, the former of which was under the latter. He knew no one in the town personally, but the man who lived in the apartment next to him, known only to him as Music Guy, for the constant yarn of guitar and piano that seeped off the balcony–that man lived above the library, which was above the video store.

Main Street, which was officially called Oate Street, proceeded in much the same way: all the important buildings were stacked upon one another like crates, two high, topped with a small apartment and painted in light, sweet pastel colors. A balcony stretched over the awnings of each of the twelve buildings, six on each side of the road, mostly identical, though some boasted patio furniture and others potted plants. The road was lined with mediocre, aging cars and sidewalks.

Sidewalks which led only around the corners, to where the bank of even smaller apartments were, or alternately to the bank of the small river. Across the river was the grave-yard; across from the apartments were the schools, all one building for the K-through-Twelve, with a little shack for the preschool tacked on. These were, of course, red brick and blue window sills around un-opening windows.

Axel had not graduated from there, and he felt bad for anyone who would.

He had wasted a good ten minutes at the balcony, looking across the street and two buildings down at the ground-level liquor store, wondering if he should bother buying beer or not. And then, another five minutes, craning his neck further, to the end of the line of pastel architecture to the modern and jarringly bright service-station, wondering if he should bother to keep smoking or not.

Axel aspired to write novels. He'd written four, so far, all sort of boring and only read by other aspiring novelists, who were so caught up in the fact that he was published that they didn't care that the plot was dry and had the consistency of oatmeal. Axel was very aware of this and while slightly amused about it–he was such an exciting guy–was not altogether pleased.

The first of his novels was titled "Shoes," and was read mostly by teenage boys, since it was about all the drugs he'd done. He'd been compared to both Hemmingway and Capote, both by the same person, who was, at the time, very drunk. The second was called "The Art of Napkin Folding," and he was likely to deny any and every connection he had with it, since it was _not_ a romance novel, and was _not_ read by preteen girls in training bras. Oh, no. The third novel was by far his favorite, called "Salt and Sin," and he couldn't really tell you what it was about, because he was bad at summarizing, but he liked it, and most people that read it liked it, so he kept on liking it. The latest addition was "Apple Skins," about a manic girl who really liked push pins.

While these were all not bad, none of them really had any heart to them. He ended up killing his characters or making them really unhappy, which his drunk friend told him, once upon a drunk phone call, was because he hadn't been properly loved as a child.

The point was, though, that Axel knew how to fix this.

Hell, it had already happened.

_/chapter one_

Basically, he had fallen in love, and it was very ironic and depressing. He had gone into a chat-room, expecting only to find a few people, talk the crap out of them, and save the chat-histories for later use, character fodder, but he'd given his IM username to a user who told him to call them–

saxon: Roxas.

pepperclay: Roxas?

So, it began. Roxas wasn't really Roxas, wasn't really nineteen, (obviously) wasn't really blond with blue eyes and a pretty smile. Sometimes Roxas wasn't even really a girl, wasn't really a boy, wasn't really a human. Roxas told a lot of lies, he tried to change his name, he tried to deny having said something, he repeated himself. He forgot who Axel was.

saxon: a/s/l?

pepperclay: It's me. You know, Axel.

saxon: *axle

pepperclay: no

pepperclay: A-X-E-L

saxon: and I'm really called roxas.

Axel kept talking to him, intrigued. Sometimes, Roxas had a twin brother, or an abusive, drunk father, or an autistic brother. Sometimes, Roxas was an only child, and sometimes he was living with an older boy.

At first, he didn't realize it. That he was falling in love. He just knew that he wrote in the night with his beer and sometimes with his cigarettes, and that instead of opening the files he'd saved, he'd just think about them, because he'd memorized them, and smile. Roxas would say,

saxon: xD I love you

And Axel would buzz, warm from the inside out. He was talking to his drunk friend, yet another drunk phone conversation, and it went sort of badly when he realized what was happening.

"_Dude, Ax, you've been talking about this Roxas for like an hour now._"

"Haha, no," Axel said absently, laying back on his bed, eying the open laptop, where his buddylist was looking sort of empty and lonesome. "Not an hour."

His friend made a hissing noise, laughed. _"Whatever. Just ask her to marry you already._"

Drunk, Axel considered it, chuckled a little at how creepy that would be. Across the room, a chiming sound told him that Roxas had signed on, and he flung himself into the wooden computer chair, still holding the phone to his ear. He gripped the desk, his head felt weird, and his drunk friend laughed. "_She's there, isn't she? God, you're in _so_ deep._"

saxon: hi

pepperclay: uh

pepperclay: hi. :]

Axel hung up, feeling like he was a little too drunk to multitask. And then, the world came crashing down. It wasn't like the apocalypse and it wasn't like nine-eleven. It was more like being woken up by a thunderstorm, or jumping into the ocean.

saxon: do you know

saxon: have you ever

pepperclay: what? :[

saxon: cybered

X

Axel had had plenty of sex, starting at sixteen with a girlfriend that was probably manlier than he'd ever be, which could've been the start of his issues, if someone bothered to examine the situation. In retrospect, all his sex had been hormones and lust and not a bit of love, just bones and flesh and girls who were tired of being abstinent 'til marriage.

Through the internet, typing carefully and with as much care as a novel, it was different. This was Roxas, who he wanted to keep talking to. Roxas who was his friend and who had named him his Number One Confidant. Roxas who told mostly lies.

When Axel went to bed that night, the bed felt bigger than it ever had before. He was Alice, shrinking, he was being folded into the ocean and forgotten, cold and dying of solitude. He wrapped his arms around his pillow, whispered to it, and fell asleep pretending to not be alone.

_/chapter two_

It was getting hard to not talk in love letters to Roxas, and it was getting hard to do anything but talk to Roxas, think about Roxas, worry about him. He quit smoking, stopped drinking, thought maybe someday he'd meet Roxas, be able to actually see him, touch him, kiss him. Hold his hand.

Maybe, he thought, if he lived long enough, they could live their lives together.

It got hard at that point. Sometime in the middle of winter, Roxas logged on and Axel could tell–the way normal lovers tell by posture and the way a lip might be worried, a nail chewed–that something was Wrong.

saxon: axel.

pepperclay: roxas.

saxon: how are you?

pepperclay: ....you know me. I'm great.

Here, there was a pause, Roxas left, no cursory BRB or hold on for a sec, just gone for half an hour, came back with a shaky

saxon: hi.

pepperclay: you okay?

saxon: I've got a boyfriend.

This could mean one of two things for Axel, and his stomach shrank in on itself, settling somewhere between his lungs. He didn't know how to respond, and folded his hands in his lap, cold, for a good moment before typing

pepperclay: oh?

with one hand.

The world crashed down, and this time it was the apocalypse.

saxon: he found my history

saxon: doesn't want me to talk to you anymore

saxon: Ax?

Axel signed off.

X

In the space of a month, Axel finished what would be regarded as his best book. He didn't sleep much, even though he was tired. He got drunk a lot, which his editor wouldn't complain about out loud, though she would have her share of angry thoughts, "rest in turmoil, fucker, see how you like these grammatical errors now, you bitch," and the like. Eventually, she gave up, and the book was published as a narrative, the subtitle reading, "Of love and lies."

It was called "Adding X's."

X

Because Axel was an writer, he thought he knew everything. He thought he could keep talking to Roxas, pretending he didn't know, pretending they were only each other's, but he was never too good at lying, even if Roxas was. He knew he would get angry, knew it would end badly.

He knew he would never find love like this ever again.

Because Roxas was perfect. He was every person in the world, all the time. He was never the same but always familiar, always willing to give Axel that little boost. It killed Axel, really, because the only lie he never told was _I love you_.

So Axel took his laptop and some cigarettes, finished up the last page of his novel, sent it via the town wireless to his editor, and chilled by the river. It got dark quickly, the cold turning his hands to stone.

He smoked a cigarette, got his laptop out.

Roxas was on.

saxon: AXEL!

pepperclay: hey

saxon: it's been forever

pepperclay:...thought you weren't supposed to talk to me

saxon: forget that, where were you?

pepperclay: is he still there?

Roxas was idle for a telling minute, and Axel smiled grimly at the cold water. He told Roxas that he lived in a small town, told him the name, his address. Roxas asked him why he was telling him that, what's wrong.

pepperclay: I'm sorry.

saxon: you're scaring me.

pepperclay: ; x;

pepperclay: see you in the next life.

He signed off quickly, wrote some quick instructions on his laptop, some notes, and moved it farther up the bank, near the foot-bridge.

Where someone would find it.

_/chapter three_

The town, as requested in a document title, "Bummer," which was really not funny, buried Axel in the cemetery across the river from where he'd died. It was an interesting death, drowning while burning, and somehow Roxas, who wasn't really Roxas, thought it suited him.

He and and his boyfriend attended the funeral, a short affair where a very stiff looking priest preached about "may God have mercy on his soul."

Roxas, who wasn't really Roxas, cried. Axel, he knew, didn't believe in God, only in the world and in Roxas, who didn't really exist. And if he did, he'd let him down.

Roxas's boyfriend, who usually felt like he didn't deserve Sora, didn't know what to think.

"This whole thing is fucked," he said bitterly, tugging at the sleeve of his suit.

But all Roxas, who was really Sora, could think was: "He will always love me."

_/end_

X


End file.
